An Archive of Nonsense
by alocin
Summary: A compilation of fics and drabbles from the livejournal batfic contest community, with various characters and genres.
1. Introduction

Brief explaination of what the hell all this is:

Okie dokies, I write fics for the batfic_contest over on livejournal. Every two weeks there's a new prompt; either for drabbles of less than 500 words or one-shots of more than 500 words. Previously I've posted these as separate fics but I have been rather [read "appallingly"] lax and haven't posted any since last July, so to save completely spamming the place I'm sticking them under one story but in separate chapters.

These fics are of varying length, feature various characters, and are of distinctly varying quality! I don't edit or re-write them – this is pretty much just an archive record of what I've entered for the comm – and some were pretty last-minute rush jobs on the final evening before the deadline. To be honest I have very little memory of even writing some of them (I assume they're mine because I don't know why anyone else would break into my house and write Bat-fanfic on my computer in the middle of the night...) Apologies for any glaring errors or inconsistencies, or slightly dodgy formatting – uploading them all takes long enough as it is, and I am decidedly lazy about grammar-proof-reading something ten months after I actually wrote it.

Harley Quinn and the Joker are my primary characters, with a JxHQ pairing in mind, but I believe that this bunch of fics also includes the Riddler, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson and some OC's. Each fic will start with the headers from the comm so that covers who is in what, any relevant warnings, ratings and so on. There are also the original author's notes at the end, which are mostly throw-away or just bizarre and make little sense even to me! Those aside, hopefully it's all fairly self-explanatory and you might find something interesting. All being well, more "chapters" will be uploaded as I go along.

All comments are very welcome, and thanks for reading.


	2. Asylum Buddy

**Prompt: **Never Again, first posted 20 July 2010

**Title:** Asylum Buddy  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU-kinda  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama/Humour  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Harley Quinn; cameos from many of the Arkham gang  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 1,341  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Your first day at Arkham and the powers-that-be decide it would be helpful to have someone show you the ropes. Who would you pick?

**Asylum Buddy**

"So hey kid, how d'you like the joint? It's got a great post-apocalyptic abandoned hospital, this'll-be-where-we-make-our-last-stand-against-the-flesh-eatin'-zombies vibe, hasn't it? I don't know if that's what the original designers were lookin' for or if it's just the result of hundreds of years of misery and despair leechin' into the walls, but it's a real atmospheric place for people to recover their marbles.

"I'm Harley by the way – Harley Quinn, but you can just call me Harley. Or 'my new asylum buddy'! Although that sounds pretty lame, so maybe just stick to Harley for now. I'm s'posed to be helping you settle in, showing you the ropes and the straight jacket buckles, givin' you the real inside scoop on Arkham Asylum from one fruitcake to another. I know – it sounds crazy, doesn't it? Musta been some new wishy-washy 'empowerment' proposal from our fine state legislature. And they call us mad!

"Well you evidently made it through the pokey-prodding-probing welcome committee and got issued with your fancy new neon-orange duds, so that's a good start. Later the docs will start diggin' around in your brain – hopefully figuratively – and they'll most likely start you on a dangerous mix of colourful pharmaceuticals designed to turn you into a drooling but compliant mess. Which'll be fun. But that's all dull, dull, dull, so let's ask these nice uniformed gentlemen if we can move along to the place where it's all happening!

"See? Ain't this an improvement? What you've got here is the fanciest wipe-clean institutional furniture that the board members were willin' to authorise payment for, plus a TV with ten – count 'em, ten – channels. Welcome, my friend, to the high-life of the Arkham recreation room!

"Come on, if we ask real nicely I'm sure Jervis will shove along a bit and we can squeeze on the end of this sofa. Yeah Jervis, I'm sure Croc won't bite if you get a bit closer to him – it was only lunch a couplea hours ago! That's better, and now where was I? Oh yeah, this is the rec room and this'll be the highlight of your days for however many years it takes you to work your way into bein' an outpatient. Or until you decide to, ah, _'unofficially discharge yourself'_, if you know what I mean. But that's all hush hush, so forget I said anythin'.

"As well as ratty old furniture and an even rattier old TV, we've got a chess set but Eddie and Dr Crane are pretty much glued to it so you'll have to go through a dozen riddles and Jonathan's attempts to spook you out if you want a game. Croc ate half the checkers pieces last month and they haven't replaced 'em yet so that's not really workin' right now, and we used to have Clue but the doctors claimed it was gettin' people _'too worked up'_. I keep sayin' they should let us have Twister but Joan says that wouldn't be a good idea, so it's pretty much daytime TV and intellectually stimulatin' conversation with anyone you can find who isn't drugged up to their eyeballs.

"So far as company goes you've probably seen most of the gang in the funny pages or on _News at Eleven_rantin' and ravin' before Batsy clonks 'em over the head with a jagged hunk of metal. They're mostly pretty fun although no one ever wants to play charades, which is a downer. Just don't sit too close to Croc if it's been a while since he last ate, and it's best not to bring up any previous jobs as a lumberjack or florist when you're talkin' to Pammy. Oh and don't mind Harvey – he's probably not really givin' you the stinkeye, that's just how he always looks. From this angle anyway.

"It's all pretty dull round here right now because Mistah J's havin' a time out – the security team weren't too happy when they found the stash of happy gas he'd been keepin' in the kitchens disguised as Cheez Whiz, so he's had his privileges revoked for a few months and isn't allowed out of his cell 'cept for therapy sessions. Which is a complete travesty of justice and just really, really mean, because it's not like he even gassed anyone with it yet! Not that bein' locked up matters to him in the grand scheme of things – because between you and me, there's a big date in Gotham's social calendar comin' up and Mistah J's got plans. That's all hush-hush too though, and if I told you anythin' about it I'd probably have to kill you, and you only just got here!

"So I should probably let you get a word in edgeways and learn a bit about you to really make this buddy thing work… whatcha in for then? You look pretty nondescript to me – I think the chicken wings at lunch had more meat on 'em. But Mistah J's always saying you can't judge a big ol' block of plastic explosive by the boring paper wrapper it comes in. What's your deal? You got any gimmicks? Do you dress up in themed outfits and terrorise the city? Any single-minded obsessions or burning grudges against uniformed authority? Nothin'? Geez you're not just one of the regular crazies that got allocated to the wrong wing are you? That's borin'.

"Y'know – and don't take this personally – but I don't think the silent rocking back and forth and chewin' on your own wrist is helping you in how you come across to people. Dripping blood on the soft furnishings isn't much of an icebreaker. Cut it out, will ya! Geez how did I end up with this babysittin' job… Gimme that – aww, look it's fine. Honest it's just a scratch. If you try to stop pickin' at it with your teeth it'll probably close up.

"You can trust me, I know what I'm doin'. You don't doze through six years of medical training without absorbing a bit of first aid by osmosis. Yeah, I used to be on the other side of the squishy walls until I took a permanent career break from reality, as that stuck-up _Herald_columnist described it. She had a pretty good way with words until Mistah J broke her thumbs for constantly puttin' her own spin on his set-pieces.

"But all those hours spent starin' glassily at chalkboards tell me you've probably got some kind of social anxiety thing goin' on. Or that Dr Crane got you with his less-than-happy gas and your subconscious thinks there's bugs under your skin. There's a name for that you know; delusional parasitosis. Hey Jonathan! Does this guy look familiar to you? You gas anyone that looks as pathetic as this lately? No, I don't think he's anyone in particular – are you? No. I think he's just one of the cat B patients that got allocated here by mistake. You know you should probably mention that to your doctor when you get one assigned to you, otherwise you might find after a few months of hangin' out with us you end up more cuckoo than when you came in!

"Now, since that's covered just about everythin' you need to know for your first day, how about a nice game of charades before they drug you into an even less communicative stupor? I'll start…"

From the other side of a scratched two-way mirror that ran the length of the recreation room, Jeremiah Arkham frowned and jotted down a few terse notes. At the next board meeting his brief and overwhelmingly negative report on the pilot programme was signed off and the project quietly shelved before any more trouble could be caused.

Dr Leland informed Harley that her services would no longer be required as a "buddy" for newly admitted patients, and she accepted this happily enough although she quietly thought she'd done an excellent job and volunteered quite happy to continue the role unofficially. Dr Leland asked her politely to please not trouble herself, several times, and the whole idea was thankfully dropped.

**Fin**

**Author's Note: **Aww, Harley. I think you had moderate-to-good intentions... Probably that was only because the Joker wasn't around, because let's face it she probably would have offered Newbie up as a twitchy toy for him to play with if he was itching to cause some pain and mental anguish to someone. Bless.

I had a bit of a weird epilogue which detailed what happened to Harley's poor first and only buddy, and how against the odds he made a full recovery and went on to run for Congress. It ended up with him being killed by bees. A little random even for me!


	3. Joyride

**Prompt: **Key, first posted 2 August 2010

**Title:** Joyride  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU-kinda  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama/Humour  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Batman, Joker, Harley  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 500  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Joker is up to no good on the rooftop of the Gotham Public Library. But why?

**Joyride**

Bruce wasn't sure what was supposed to be funny about planting a bomb at the public library, but the description in the tip-off had been unmistakable – unless maybe the Scarecrow had suddenly developed a taste for green hair dye and purple tailoring.

Discrete surveillance from a neighbouring building led to the roof, where a collection of suspicious crates and wiring confirmed details provided by the anonymous caller. When the Joker appeared on the rooftop alone, checking the crates, Bruce knew he would have only a brief opportunity to strike before 'showtime' when his presence would be expected – if not demanded.

He was not surprised when the lanky figure turned to greet him with a delighted clap of his hands.

"Oh, look who it is! Nice to see we're on the same page with this little jape."

Bruce took a few steps closer, watching carefully for traps. "There's no one even in the building this late, Joker. Why blow it up?"

Purple-clad shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Oh, y'know – overdue book fines. You take out an interesting volume on DIY experimental genetics, then someone drags you back to Arkham for a six week mental holiday, and bang – you're slapped with a $20 fine! They need to learn that's just not reasonable."

Bruce was ready to reach for a Batarang if the clown made any sudden moves. "Just come along-"

He was interrupted by a whooping cry. "Take that ya big lummox!" Harley Quinn shouted as she leapt out from a crate and dashed him around the head with what looked to be a joke book. After getting in a few blows she sprang away back to the Joker, who presented her with a small device before waving her away impatiently.

"Now, you might be able to take me in, but Harley's got the detonator." He chuckled as Harley cartwheeled off down the fire escape. "Think you can catch her as well?"

He knew there had to be more, but was forced to follow the immediate threat. "This isn't over," Bruce warned as he took off after the giggling jester, reluctantly leaving the Joker waving a jaunty goodbye.

A little later, puffing from the race she'd had before managing to lose the Bat and double back, Harley found the Joker lounging on the bonnet of the car in an alleyway next to the library. She proudly held up a jet-black key with a familiar silhouette etched into the surface of the metal.

"I got it Puddin'!" she chirped. "I palmed it good when I jumped him."

"Excellent work, pumpkin," Joker declared, snatching the key from her hand. With a flourish he pressed the centre button and the hood of the sleek vehicle slid back. "Remember it's double points for people talking on their cellphones, and triple for anyone wearing an 'ironic' item of clothing."

"Check!" Harley replied, discarding the dummy detonator and producing a tally counter along with an equally wide grin.

It looked to be a lovely night for a Batmobile joyride.

**Fin**

**Author's Note:** Joker stealing the Batmobile is an idea that's popped up a few times, but I'm going to specifically credit "It's the thought that counts" by gladrial which is an awesome story that has a hilarious ending, and which fed into the plotting of this little drabble-length mini adventure.


	4. Colour Me Crazy

**Prompt: **Failure, first posted 19 August 2010

**Title:** Colour Me Crazy  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU-kinda  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama/Humour  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Harley & The Joker  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 3,450  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Harley's on a very important mission, but suffers a few setbacks...

**Colour Me Crazy**

"If I get any wetter I'm gonna have to grow gills," Harley commented to no one in particular as she trudged down the strip mall one squelching step at a time, daydreaming of dry clothes and cuddling up in a warm bed with her Puddin'.

It wasn't that she didn't _enjoy_running errands for her man – heck, she'd walk over hot coals for the opportunity to press his shirts, help carry out a bank heist and lug all the loot home afterwards, or just to curl up quietly on the floor next to his desk and rub his feet. Any little thing she could do to help smooth out the wrinkles of his day-to-day life was fine by her – a chance to demonstrate the depth of her love and help him in his never-ending work.

It was just a lot more fun when the job didn't involve traipsing through the streets by herself for hours, steadily getting soaked to the skin by the inclement Gotham weather.

Still, it wasn't as though she'd been sent away on some mere trifle – and Harley held her sodden head a little higher as she reaffirmed the importance of her mission. If she didn't succeed then the brilliance that poured from her Puddin's genius brain could end up being stalled in its tracks – and how much worse would it be for the citizens of Gotham if they didn't have someone like Mistah J around to liven things up and bring a few smiles to their dull, grey faces? She couldn't fail her Puddin' or the useless inhabitants of their fair (if currently rather wet) city.

But after visiting a dozen general stores, toyshops and school suppliers, drawing a giant blank at each one, Harley was starting to get a little more concerned about how long it was taking to track down the supplies he needed.

The thing was; Mistah J was very particular about the tools of his trade, and that included his plotting materials. When he was taking a break in Arkham or otherwise without access to supplies he would sketch out ideas with whatever came to hand – inferior blunted asylum crayons, the stubbly remains of pencils filched from betting shops, and on at least one occasion he'd been reduced to improvised finger-painting with the slowly congealing blood of some unfortunate ex-henchman. But when he was out and about and the ideas were flowing, it had to be his favourite brand of crayons – Skribbles; each one sharpened to a perfectly fine point with casual ease using a small but wickedly sharp knife. Only then could his work begin, and a million and one perfect schemes and heists could begin to take shape across reams of notepaper.

The blacks and reds were soon run down to stubs, as could be expected when the majority of sketches involved pointy-eared black-clad figures lying in pools of blood. (Although Harley liked to think that the odd time she was credited with an appearance contributed to the red-and-black usage rates as well.) But it was the purples and greens that were most regularly called into service creating little mini-Jokers and weapons or props decorated with his trademark colours and gorgeous grinning face. And when Mistah J couldn't include the most important figure in his drawings, things were bound to get messy.

Earlier that afternoon Harley had been sprawled out on a pile of cushions in front of the flickering television doing some doodling of her own across the weekly gossip magazines she regularly filched from the supermarket. Eye patches, beards and blacked-out teeth now decorated the celebrities – mostly to avoid facing the questions she'd got stuck on in the quizword. She knew Mistah J would be able to reel off the missing answers without thinking, but he'd been holed up in his office for several hours and she'd learnt by now to space out the number of times she disturbed him when he was working. She'd been saving up those times for a determined attempt to lure him into joining her on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn when the really trashy evening reality shows started. Making fun of the hopeless fame-hungry 'stars' just wasn't as fun by herself, and she half-hoped that if he got really riled up at the sheer concentration of idiocy amongst the limelight-hogging imbeciles he might forget he was in the middle of working and be agree to some more entertaining evening pursuits.

But just as she was giving Bruce Wayne and the floozy of a model hanging off his arm at some premiere a pair of matching black eyes, the Joker burst into the living room in a whirlwind of snarling frustration, brandishing his pencil sharpening knife in one hand and a tiny fragment of a purple crayon in the other. She instantly jumped to her feet, accidentally stabbing one bare foot with the marker pen she'd been using and hopping a little in pain as she looked up at the Joker expectantly.

"Hiya Puddin'," she'd begun optimistically. "How's your work goin'?"

"It's stalled, up on blocks right now, thanks to you! Who is supposed to keep an eye on these supplies?" he demanded, striding up to where she was wobbling on one foot and waving the stub of a crayon in her face. "I've got less than quarter of an inch of royal purple left. How am I supposed to plan out this heist at the stock exchange if I don't have any purple? Do I have to tape a red and a blue crayon together, or scribble over everything twice like some sort of deranged kindergartener?"

Her eyes darted between his furious expression and the tiny, flashing blade still in his left hand. Harley quickly reached the only rational decision.

"I'll go get you a fresh box Puddin' – I'll be back in a jiffy, promise!"

He'd glared and muttered something about not caring whether she bought it, stole it or prised it from the cold dead hands of a recently deceased orphan, but seemed happy enough (ie the knife remained firmly in his hand and not firmly in any part of her) as she quickly hobbled off to grab her purse and some clothes suitable for an afternoon shopping trip before he changed his mind.

That had been several hours earlier. How was she supposed to know there was some kind of state-wide shortage of Skribbles crayons, and that all the usual shops only had generic brands that Mistah J would quite rightly turn his nose up at? None of the other brands produced the right strikingly vivid shade of purple, and there was no way that she was going to return bearing a box of crayons that contained only horrible clashing plums and violets. And then, to make her otherwise humdrum expedition that extra bit fun, the heavens had opened. She'd forgotten that just because it was August didn't mean she was safe from an afternoon of torrential rain with the odd clap of thunder breaking out across old Gotham town.

With all the style of a half-drowned bag of kittens and reduced to talking to herself, lucky number thirteen, the arty boutique, was just about her last hope. And if nothing else at least she'd get out of the rain for a few minutes. Having decided to go shopping 'incognito' she'd dressed in regular street clothes rather than her usual working get-up, but the red and black quilted vest she'd thrown over a shirt and jeans wasn't performing much better than skin-tight spandex when it came to keeping the rain off.

Harley pushed open the door, setting off a small brass bell fixed to the ceiling. Dripping steadily from her soggy pigtails down to her waterlogged trainers, she squelched across the shop floor leaving a watery trail as she passed shelves bearing a range of expensive-looking craft materials, oil paints, and watercolour palettes. There was a distinct lack of the familiar giant, primary-colour mixed tins of crayons.

The woman behind the counter was wearing a knit twinset and pearls – worryingly possibly not ironically – and a tiny set of pince-nez glasses – also possibly not ironically. Although she couldn't have been much older than her early thirties she seemed to be channelling a fifties librarian. And from the expression that was screwing up her face behind the comically tiny eyeglasses, Harley wasn't convinced she was pleased to have a prospective customer dripping her way across the fussily minimalist little shop.

"Hi," Harley said with a breezy tone that belied her unwillingly-soggy-cat appearance, "I'm lookin' for a particular shade of Skribbles crayon – or just a multipack box of fifty if you've got 'em."

The woman raised her eyebrows but bizarrely the tiny glasses remained fixed in place. "I'm sorry, we don't sell children's crayons here – just high quality artist's materials." She gave a small huff of what seemed to be haughty distaste. "This is a specialist creative supplies outlet, not a toy store."

Harley felt a warming outrage spreading through her limbs – this was one stuck-up shopkeeper who didn't know who she was messing with.

"Kids crayons?" She slammed her hands on the counter as she leant forward to better give the woman a piece of her mind. "Hey lady, you don't have to use overpriced twenty-dollar pencils to be an artist you know! Mistah J can probably draw more creative stuff with the crayons you get free with a kid's meal at Burger Hut than you could ever come up with, even if you took lessons from Leonardo da Vinci himself!"

As quickly as it appeared the outrage ebbed away, leaving her tired, deflated and with no appetite for fighting pointless battles with poker-faced shop owners, although the woman had taken a few steps back from the counter and her tiny glasses looked distinctly (and pleasingly) skewed.

"Aww, what the heck – I'll give it one more try at the toy store down on Tenth Street." Harley sighed and began to walk away, but then spun back with an accusing finger raised. "But you should be a bit nicer to your customers y'know. I might have wanted to also buy a $100 paintbrush, which has gotta be made from unicorn hair at that price, or some overpriced sparkly feathery-glittery-beads an' stuff – but I'd be going elsewhere now. And I won't be recommending you to any of my friends at my next art therapy class."

The shopkeeper stared after her in shocked silence as Harley squelched back out into the steady rain, and she hoped her little outburst wouldn't trigger a call to the Gotham PD – she had better things to do than trying to clamber up fire escapes and across rooftops in wet jeans.

A few blocks more of dodging puddles in the fading light and Harley approached the entrance to the small self-contained shopping centre that included an independent toy store she once recalled stocking Skribbles crayons. But as she arrived she was greeted by the sight of a portly security guard lowering automated metal shutters across the front door.

"Wait, wait!" she called, breaking into a trot and wondering if it was really advisable to try ducking and rolling through the rapidly narrowing gap between the shutters and the floor.

"Sorry lady, the mall shuts at eight," the guard said without turning from the button he was pressing – an act that seemingly required 100% of his concentration.

"But it's only seven fifty-eight!" She protested. "I've got another two minutes!"

"My watch says it's eight, and besides the stores'll all be shut up inside now anyways." He gave a wry chuckle. "They open again in twelve hours – you're welcome to wait out here in the rain if you're that desperate."

Oh, a wannabe-comedian! Excellent. Harley's fingers itched for the handle of her over-sized mallet.

"I'm makin' a mental note of your brilliant sense of humour, bub, and you're goin' on a list. Some day we'll have to be pulling a job around here, and wait until you get a face full o' happy-gas and see how funny things are then!"

Harley strode away with a growl of frustration, muttering curses under her breath directed at security guards, the management of shopping centres (or whoever it was that determined their opening hours), and anyone else even tangentially related to the predicament she was now in.

She wandered back up the street the way she had came, heading in no particular direction. She was out of likely open shops in this part of town, and suspected there weren't likely to be any more options anywhere else other than the Skribbles factory itself (which she seemed to recall was in California). Going back to Mistah J empty-handed was not an option given the mood he'd been in, but neither was caving and buying inferior replacement crayons. What other options were there? It was time for some outside-the-jack-in-the-box brainstorming.

She could randomly knock on doors and ask people if they had any Skribbles crayons, then offer to buy them as vastly inflated prices. Probability of the police being called within three door knocks: high.

She could swipe a credit card, take a taxi to the airport, buy a ticket to California and get some crayons direct from the factory itself. It was a lot of effort and would take quite a while, plus Mistah J might wonder where she'd got to around breakfast time when waffles didn't make themselves, but she was willing to give it serious consideration as a plan B.

It was then that she came level with the gates of St Barnabas's children's hospital. Somewhere in her brain, several little fairy light bulbs lit up. Skribbles was a popular brand of crayons for kids, and kids in hospital were likely to be bored, so they'd keep plenty of toys, games and arty stuff around to keep the little rugrats busy. And how much security would there be in the toy corners or classrooms of a hospital?

The doctors, nurses and reception staff all seemed too busy to pay attention to anything that didn't have a hospital patient wristband on, and the most Harley got as she walked casually through the reception area was a few curious looks from children sat in the waiting room, probably wondering why she looked like she'd been swimming with all her clothes on. But she made it to the elevator without any trouble and pressed a random button to head up for the wards. She stared at her tired, waterlogged reflection in the door panels.

"I can't believe I'm stealin' crayons from a kid's hospital when I could be home with Mistah J watchin' _America's Next Top Model_and helping him come up with ways to rig it so they all suffer horribly disfigurin' accidents during the photo shoots. That's what a nice relaxing evening should be like."

The first floor she reached looked too much like offices and record keeping, so she tried the next one up. That was more like a regular hospital floor, and she quickly spotted a room marked "school" and decorated with several children's drawings of themselves – some very cutely if a little pathetically with slings or crutches, or sat in wheelchairs. Harley hoped the people responsible for educating and entertaining the injured munchkins had a good taste in art supplies.

It looked like she'd hit paydirt: there were a few half-empty cartons of Skribbles crayons sitting on a desk. She quickly snuck across the empty classroom and rooted through them, but there were no purples. A jumbled box of crayons, pens and chalks was sat on what looked to be the teacher's desk, and she delved desperately through the mixture before spotting an elusive but familiar shade lurking in one corner. With an "ah-ha!" of satisfaction she held it aloft. Okay it had clearly been used a few times and needed a good sharpening, and okay the label was a little torn, and okay there was what looking like teeth marks at the far end, but it was a royal purple crayon and if Mistah J wasn't satisfied then she was just about ready to tell him where he could stuff it.

Grabbing a red and a black for luck (and to tide Mistah J over until she could order a new bulk pack of mixed colours from California – to heck with over inflated postage costs) she retraced her steps and hoped this hospital didn't have hidden security cameras in the classrooms. It would be just her luck if security were waiting at the front doors and her mission ended with a one-way trip to Arkham. Just to be doubly sure she took a different route on the ground floor, out a fire escape into the rear car park. Where it was still raining – she definitely couldn't win them all.

One last traipse back across town, bearing her precious and hard-won scavenged crayons, and Harley made it back to the old comedy club that was serving as their Ha-Hacienda. She called out that she was back, not expecting or receiving much of a reply, and struggled to undo the sodden laces on her trainers before kicking them off to sit wetly in a corner.

She stumbled across what was once the front-of-house bar and trudged up the stairs to the dressing and fitting rooms that were now the living space. There she found the Joker lying across the full length of the sofa, half-watching what appeared to be "Live Psychic Chat TV" and half cutting the remains of her magazine to shreds with his crayon-sharpening knife. The celebrity photos were being combined to form grotesque composites with several sets of eyes, noses and mouths – several such creatures being pasted together on spare scraps of paper. The quizword appeared to have been cut out and cast aside on the floor, but not before being completed in a familiar-looking haphazard hand, using a familiar-looking purple colour crayon.

It looked like someone had been having a fun afternoon without her.

Joker looked up with casual disinterest as she entered the room. "Oh, I wondered where you'd gotten to. Have you been trying to take a shower without undressing first again? Silly Harleykins."

She collapsed onto the spare few square inches of sofa by his feet. "No Puddin', I was out tracking down just about the only royal purple crayon left in all of Gotham!" He quirked an eyebrow at her, but she continued in her tale. "You wouldn't believe how many stores I checked and what idiotic shopkeepers and security guards I faced, and definitely not how wet it is out there, but I found it." With a flourish she reached into her purse and produced the crayon, careful to hold it so as to best cover up the teeth marks. "Ta-da!"

Joker gave the crayon in her hand a blank and un-recognising stare for a moment, before switching to a small nod of acknowledgement.

"Oh yes, I was out of purple, wasn't I? Jolly good. Just leave it on the desk – I'll probably get back to that project sometime. But I've moved on to mixed-media collages just for the moment."

Harley stared at him speechlessly, grasping for some sort of hold on the situation before giving in and taking the only sensible course of action: breaking into a giggle.

"Oh, Puddin', you're such a kidder!" She scolded, tired but welcoming the opportunity to grasp at her original plan of how to spend the evening.

She returned the crayon to her purse and threw it carelessly onto the floor next to the sofa before curling her feet up and stretching out to lie back against the Joker's long legs, wet clothes and all. He gave a small frown of distaste as moisture started to seep into the fabric of his trousers, but then went back to his photographic incisions.

"How many dead family members have come up with the winnin' lottery numbers yet for their impoverished grandchildren's college funds, Puddin'?" she asked sleepily.

"None, as usual," Joker answered with a certain amount of disappointment. "These two-bit fraudsters never bother to go the whole hog and set up a fake lottery to really scam the ignorant properly. If you're going to bother to do it, go big!" He shook his head. "They just don't seem to want to put the effort in…"

"You should do it yourself Puddin' – an' offer to read the Commissioner's palm. Maybe while you're here and the rest of him's still down at the police station?"

Joker chuckled and absentmindedly patted at her head as he flicked to the next page of the magazine, causing Harley to glow with satisfaction. Maybe the day wasn't a complete write-off after all.

**Fin**

**Author's Note:** This was another somewhat rambling random series of events prompted by me getting quite wet last week due to our lovely not-very-summery weather we've been having here in the UK. And I really don't know about where the obsession with crayons came from. Harley's outfit was somewhat stolen from a Streets of Gotham issue from last year where she has a spiffy red and black puffa vest and matching fingerless gloves.


	5. Forty Winks

**Prompt: **Sandwich, first posted 25 August 2010

**Title:** Forty Winks  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU-kinda  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama/Humour  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Joker 'n' Harley (plus four-legged guest cameos)  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 409  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Who's sleeping in Joker's bed?

**Forty Winks**

Joker cast bleary eyes across the room to where Harley was snuggled up in bed amidst a small mountain of pillows and cushions, sandwiched between two snoring hyenas. It was an adorable sight, and it made him itch to kick the whole lot of them out into the drizzling Gotham night.

He'd foolishly tolerated it when she first snuck her way into the handmade Italian silk sheets beside him. After all, it meant she was close by for when he wanted breakfast prepared in the morning and she had a few other uses that were occasionally welcome if he wanted to unwind after a hard day of scheming and generally being his brilliant self.

But he'd failed to foresee that she would consider this to be carte blanche licence to 'snuggle' with him at all hours of the night, pile dozens of extraneous cushions across the bed so every nap risked ending in a smothered avalanche of pillows and eat midnight snack cookies while dropping scratchy crumbs between the sheets. She'd pushed the envelope so far her hand had to be halfway through the shredder.

And now, seemingly, even the mangy mutts he'd 'borrowed' from Gotham Zoo to try to keep her smothering attentions occupied took priority over him when it came to sleeping arrangements.

Joker stood in the doorway grinding his teeth. It was a travesty – wasn't he even lord and master of his own bed anymore?

Harley awoke with a shriek as the cascade of frigid water hit her, instantly jerking her from sleep. She coughed and spluttered as she rubbed the dripping water from her eyes, looking around for the cause of her unexpected cold shower.

The first thing that she noticed was an equally drenched Bud and Lou leaping off the bed and running from the room with a series of cackling yelps. The second was what they ran past: a satisfied looking Joker holding an empty bucket. He casually threw the bucket to one side then lay down and stretched out across the half of the bed that appeared to have been left deliberately unsoaked, giving a leisurely yawn and stretch. Harley gazed at him with soggy confusion.

"It's enough trouble having one snoring creature slobbering in my ear all night, pumpkin, without the need to add two more," he explained through half-closed eyes. "And you might want to go and dry off – it's not good to sleep with wet hair you know."

**Fin**

**Author's Note:** That's two weeks in a row of Harley getting wet - I blame the fact that our "summer" has been distinctly soggy this year and I keep getting rained on heading to and from work. Boo


	6. Food War

**Prompt:** Sandwich, first posted 1 September 2010

**Title:** Food War  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU-kinda  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama/Humour  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Joker 'n' Harley  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 500  
><strong>Summary: <strong>A man's plate is his castle - steal from it at your peril!

**Food War**

If you were looking for somewhere to have lunch in Gotham that was off the law enforcement radar and without the hoi polloi that tended to run screaming and dialling nine-one-one when they saw you, then the Iceberg Lounge was the place to be.

On this occasion the Joker had grown tired of takeout and Harley's often science-experiment-gone-wrong take on cookery, and he'd arranged to have lunch at the Iceberg prior to a meeting with several drearily dull bureaucrats at city hall who arranged some of the bribes that often greased the wheels of his more elaborate schemes.

Sat at a table away from the noise of the main bar, Joker took another bite of sandwich and chewed thoughtfully, wondering which of the multitude of half-plotted-out ideas he should choose to torment Gotham and his favourite Bat with next. Livening up the yawnsome city-wide food drive with some extra-special Joker brand canned food? Replacing the dental hospital's laughing gas with his own far superior mixture? Tracking down and sending belated presents to some of the children he orphaned last Christmas? It was always so hard to pick between them!

He reached out for the second half of his sandwich and raised it to his mouth before pausing in confusion as he noticed the bear-sized bite already taken out of it.

"You were right Puddin'," Harley commented with some difficulty around what appeared to be a large mouthful of stolen sandwich. "The roast beef here is real good – I shoulda ordered that rather than the salad."

"And yet you didn't," he pointed out sharply, dropping the mutilated sandwich back onto the plate. "So pray tell why you appear to have eaten half of mine?"

"Well it looked really yummy, and you can try some of my salad." He watched agog as she lifted a large forkful of lettuce and assorted other worryingly green looking vegetables onto his plate – was she actually trying to poison him? "Now we're sharin'! It's what couples do."

"Have you been reading those ridiculous magazine relationship columnists again?" Joker asked, eyeing up the sharp tines of the fork laid out next to his plate and Harley's delicate, softly fleshed hands.

"No," she giggled, "they're more focussed on sharin' and wearing stuff like chocolate sauce. They gave me some ideas for fun things to do with cream pies though." She paused and began sneaking her hand back towards his plate. "Can I have another bite?"

The fork made a dull _thunk_as it embedded itself in the wooden surface of the table where Harley's hand had been a few moments earlier.

"Since you asked so nicely, no, you can't," Joker answered simply as he reclaimed the remains of his sandwich.

This didn't deter her from sneaking several French fries when she thought he wasn't looking, so Joker polished off a good two-thirds of the chocolate sundae she ordered in retaliation.

Harley declared the food war a draw, subject to a cream pie based rematch in more private surroundings.

**Fin**

**Author's Note:** I reckon Harley would subscribe to the "food doesn't have calories if it's on someone else's plate" rule, plus she'd think it was cute to share. I'm not convinced Joker would agree with either of those points.


	7. Moonlight Vigil

**Prompt:** Full Moon, first posted 26 September 2010

**Title:** Moonlight Vigil  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU-kinda  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Joker 'n' Harley  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 500  
><strong>Summary: <strong>The Joker keeps a lonely watch for his favourite rodent-themed vigilante.

**Moonlight Vigil**

The anonymous rooftops of Gotham's office complexes, municipal buildings and warehouses often played host to some unusual sights. If they cared to look up, passers-by might spot caped silhouettes keeping watch over the streets below, nefarious-looking characters conducting clandestine meetings or dramatic chases as shadowy figures leapt and swung from building to building.

But on this particular evening the unkempt rooftop of the abandoned downtown theatre was decidedly lacking in drama.

The Joker turned away from his vigil across the city skyline, morosely kicked at a stray fragment of brick and wondered just what a guy had to do to get the attention of a masked rodent-themed vigilante these days.

Since he'd broken out of Arkham the week before he'd pulled off half a dozen frankly _brilliant_schemes and had not one sniff of a Bat to disturb things. At the last heist he'd even dragged his heels so much the Gotham PD had come close to catching up with him – and he was loathe to face the shame of being dragged back to Arkham in their ham-fisted custody.

It was almost like – _horror of horrors_– the Bat didn't want to play anymore!

What would he do if his straight man had permanently hung up his tights and cape?

The thought was enough to make a man want to take out a school bus full of kindergarteners and watch the scraps of cartoon-character backpacks and lunch bags litter the street like confetti.

He gave a long-suffering sigh – but then where was the punchline if there were no Bat-tights in a knot about the whole thing?

"Oh Puddin', it's so romantic up here on the rooftop. Just the two of us, bathed in the moon's golden celestial glow..."

Joker's entirely justified self-pitying musings were interrupted by a twittering voice that turned out to belong to Harley, perched on the edge of the rooftop and kicking her legs back and forth as she gazed up at the inky night sky. She turned to face him with a rapturous expression behind the black-and-white of her face paint and mask.

"Isn't the moon pretty tonight, huh Puddin'? It's like a giant glowin' cream pie, suspended in the sky and just waitin' to be tossed in the world's face." She pantomimed the actions with a childish glee. "And it's all yours to throw, boss."

Joker had been planning to give her a gentle shove and get a few giggles watching her tumble off the roof and down the fire escape, but her complete faith in his comic genius was strangely almost… comforting. And he couldn't forget his vital role as jester on the world stage just because of being stood up by the Bat a few times.

"You're right about that, kiddo," he murmured as he walked slowly towards Harley's obliviously precarious perch on the crumbling wall next to the fire escape. "They'll never know what hit 'em – pow, right to the kisser."

And the Bat would be back sooner or later. He always was.

**Fin**

**Author's Note:** Tuck and roll, Harley. Tuck and roll. Even accidentally helping Joker out of a funk can lead to unfortunate fire-escape related contusions.


	8. The Imprisoned Heart

**Prompt:** Wall, first posted 10 October 2010

**Title:** The Imprisoned Heart  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU-kinda  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Harley Quinn  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 713  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Nothing says separation like some big ole' razor wire-topped walls between you and the one you love...  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>Lack of subtlety ahead

**The Imprisoned Heart**

The walls of Arkham Asylum sent a clear message to those unfortunate souls sentenced to an indeterminate spell of incarceration within their razor wire-topped confines. They were tall enough to cast the outside recreation area in perpetual shadow and constructed from dark, grimy bricks that were rumoured to have been reused from a demolished slaughterhouse or an orphanage that was destroyed by fire at the turn of the century – depending on which story you listened to and whether you thought the numerous stains looked more like soot or blood. The imposing boundary that surrounded the Asylum buildings spoke loud and clear – _abandon hope, all ye within these walls_.

That and _"smile, you're on candid camera"_, according to the supposedly ironic smiley-face signs dotted at regular intervals beneath the ever-present security cameras trained on both sides of the walls.

Harley gave a wistful sigh at the sight of the familiar signs as she recalled how much Mistah J enjoyed putting on a show for the security staff. Whether it was fashioning a deadly weapon from the single rusted basketball hoop and staging an impromptu riot against the guards, or just baiting one of the droolers to try climbing over the electric fence that separated the recreation area from the staff car park, he always knew how to liven things up for the bored, donut-munching couch potatoes who manned the cameras. It had to be more fun than watching Eddie and Professor Crane knocking out stalemate after stalemate with an imaginary chess set scratched out in the asphalt.

Thinking about her Puddin' had set off the sniffles again, and she wiped at her eyes with an already soggy sleeve. Whenever they were separated she missed him with a physical pain that nothing in her medical training had prepared her for. Years of gymnastics might have accustomed her to awkward falls, twists and muscle tears, and it wasn't as though her 'day-job' of clambering across rooftops dodging the attentions of a cape-wearing weirdo – a weirdo who had no compunctions against hitting a girl if said girl was running off with a vital detonator or sack full o' loot – came without its share of aches and bruises. But nothing was close to the relentless misery of being apart; adrift in the cold, empty world without her smart, brilliant, funny Puddin' to cling to. It was hard to think about without resorting to a hundred and one sappy lovesong clichés, but when your heart felt like it had been torn out and used as a hacky-sack by the universe what else was there to do?

She gazed up at the cruel, cold walls that trapped her in this prison of loneliness and pictured herself flying high above them – above the rusty jagged wire and beyond to where Mistah J would be waiting for her. They would ride off together into the sunset – a white horse was optional, but would be nice – and this pain would become just a memory, replaced with the joy of being able to touch him, hold him and never let go. He would confess that he'd missed her just as much as she'd missed him, and they would retire to a suitably romantic but just slightly sleazy motel where they would lock the door and not emerge for a good 24 hours – or maybe call it 36 hours, just to be on the safe side.

But she couldn't – not yet.

Harley dashed away the last of her bitter tears and tried to fix a resolute expression on her face. She knew that sometimes it was necessary to stay in Arkham to make preparations for an important plan; to organise the lesser villains into doing the dirtier, riskier work or more subtly scheme with staff who might have connections across Gotham society through their private practices. So she knew, painful as it was, that she had to find patience and wait for the sign that meant Mistah J was ready for her. And today was not going to be that day.

With a last hiccupping sniff she turned her back on the walls and walked across to where the stolen car was parked, off the road that led to the main gates. Just like every day, she told herself that maybe it would be tomorrow.

**Fin**


	9. Out, Damned Spot!

**Prompt:** Water, first posted 26 October 2010

**Title:** Out, Damned Spot!  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU-kinda  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama/Humour  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Harley, Joker  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 500  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Someone needs some antibacterial handwash.

**Out, Damned Spot!**

The light reflected harshly against the stained off-white tiles, making her squint. But at least she'd finally found the bathroom.

Harley padded across to the low sink, pausing to pull a face at her imperfect reflection in the cracked mirror that hung crookedly on the wall before giving the rusty tap an experimental twist. Barely tepid water dribbled from the faucet accompanied by an ominous banging noise. Harley optimistically began rinsing her hands, smiling at the pretty pink colour of the water disappearing down the grimy plughole while simultaneously wondering how many bacteria were swimming around in the plumbing system of an abandoned old wreck like this.

Was it possible to get listeria from stagnant water? Or was that Weil's disease? All those long, dull pre-med lectures seemed like they'd been given to a different Harley – in another universe, far, far away.

Present-day Harley frowned down at the sink. The tepid water seemed to just dilute the blood and smear it across even more of her hands, staining them a brilliant colour to match her costume.

She was struck by the sudden temptation to dab blood-red handprints all across the boring white walls, and fingerpaint smiley faces and lovehearts throughout the ramshackle warehouse. She was sure Mistah J wouldn't mind her livening the place up, even if it was only going to be a temporary stopover while they laid low for a few nights.

On reflection bloody handprints might be a bit unhygienic though – Harley suspected that security guard could have been carrying all sorts of nasties, and Mistah J wouldn't want a potentially infection-carrying interior décor scheme. She resolved instead to channel Lady Macbeth and scrub harder.

"Out, damned spot!" she declared.

"Who would have thought that scrawny rent-a-cop had so much blood in him?" A voice added from behind her, as Harley turned to see the Joker affecting a suitably theatrical pose in the doorway. He strode across the room and raised her red-streaked hands in his as she giggled.

"What, will these hands never be clean?" he asked questioningly.

"Not anytime soon, Puddin'," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I shoulda put my gloves back on before I helped you move what was left of that guy." She slipped her hands free to turn off the dribbling tap and dried them on some dusty paper towels piled up next to the sink. Holding her hands up for inspection, it was clear that tepid water alone wasn't going to work miracles.

"Tut tut – my little Harley's been caught red handed."

Harley huffed and Joker chuckled, then she recalled her earlier idea about brightening the place up.

"Since I'm not getting any cleaner, if we've got any red paint left how d'you feel about big red smiley faces as a interior decoratin' theme?"

Joker pondered this for a moment then nodded vigorously.

Two hours later red paint was smeared across the sink, floor and walls, and Harley proposed they switch to a hideout with access to hot water and soap.

**Fin**

**End note: **It's really another one of those random ones! I've just been moving house and had a lot of cleaning to do - possibly I'm just channelling too many inhaled bleach fumes and have gone a bit cleaning-mad.

_To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate!_


	10. The Soundtrack of Arkham

**Prompt:** Spirit, first posted 7 November 2010

**Title:** The Soundtrack of Arkham  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU-kinda  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama/Horror  
><strong>Characters:<strong> OC, Scarecrow  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 1,226  
><strong>Summary:<strong> The inmates of Arkham provide their own tunes, and not everyone would pick Lady Gaga  
><strong>Warning: <strong>For some gore and mentions of suicide

**The Soundtrack of Arkham**

Joe rested his head against the springy synthetic padding that covered the walls of the six-by-four room that was to be his home for the immediate future, sighing with contentment. At last the endless line of police officers and doctors had disappeared, taking their incessant questions with them. Now he would finally have the time and the peace and quiet to just think.

Had it really been days, if not weeks, since he had been able to sit in the darkness alone with his thoughts? It was definitely before that unfortunate incident with the Philips family next door; before the officers came and asked for his assistance in figuring out what exactly happened to prompt a seemingly mild-mannered accountant into decapitating a husband, wife and their three children then stacking their heads up by their mailbox.

What did they expect him to say? It wasn't as though he did it because their dog barked all night or because Sheila always made the same boring tuna casserole for the church pot-luck dinner – it was just something that happened. He couldn't have prevented himself from doing it anymore than he could stop the sun from rising. For some reason the officers and doctors didn't seem to think that was the whole story, but there it was and that was all he could tell them.

That whole mess had ended up with him being given a one-way ticket to Arkham Asylum, home of the largest concentration of nutcases this side of the House of Representatives. There were people in this building who talked through puppets, thought they could control plants or gassed people to death _for a joke_.

Fine he'd obviously had a bit of a funny turn, but privately he thought it would all be sorted out and he'd be back home by Christmas.

Joe yawned and stretched out on the thin mattress, letting his mind wander in the darkness. He supposed that at least this indefinite period of incarceration would give him plenty of time for quiet contemplation.

But as the thought drifted slowly through his mind the dark stillness was pierced by an ear-splitting shriek from an adjacent cell, and the cry was soon taken up by a dozen others across the corridor or further down the hall.

As it turned out, Arkham Asylum was not the best environment for peace and quiet solitude. The dark halls frequently echoed with screams, incoherent wailing and off-key renditions of whatever had been played on the nurses' station radio that morning. The old hands on the security teams would joke with new guys that they hadn't lived until they'd heard an all-lunatic version of Lady Gaga's _Bad Romance_.

The night staff generally ignored the racket, turning up the volume on their miniature TV sets or iPods. After all, a bit of noise was to be expected from a warehouse full of crazies, and the darkness and being shut up in the confines of their cells seemed to set them off more than usual.

But if anyone on the medical staff had bothered to collate the figures, they would have found here were higher numbers of patients with hallucinatory symptoms than would usually be expected for a secure hospital of a similar size. More than average numbers of inmates reported hearing voices – mocking, berating, belittling them. And many apparently saw visions of people from their pasts – an abusive father, the unfaithful lover, a long-dead child wearing the christening gown they were buried in.

The more coherent patients whispered of the building being haunted by the souls of long-dead inmates from the asylum's past; the very bricks and mortar infected by their misery and despair. The doctors tutted at such claims and upped their anti-psychotics and anti-anxiety dosages.

A new arrival wasn't to know such things, and Joe merely pulled the thin blanket up over his head against the noise and waited for it to subside.

Another thing that a new arrival wasn't to know was that the fifth cell on the left of the secure unit had developed a sinister reputation after three patients managed to kill themselves there in the space of six months, despite the usual anti-suicide precautions being taken. One cut open their wrist on a sharpened toothbrush handle, while another somehow managed to swallow enough of their blanket to choke themselves. The most recent case had been labelled "unknown natural causes" after the patient was found at breakfast tucked up in bed without a scratch on them but unquestionably stone dead. This did nothing to prevent rumour spreading amongst the junior medical staff and security teams that the unfortunate occupant of the cursed room had somehow willed their own heart to stop beating.

The cell's current oblivious occupant yawned again and rolled over to try to find a more comfortable position on the narrow shelf-like bed.

Joe was pleased to find that his neighbour's shrieking had subsided, and the other rooms soon fell silent in turn. But his peace was now disturbed by a more subtle sound – a faint hissing, seemingly coming from a recessed vent in the ceiling. He stood up and moved closer to investigate the sound, wondering why someone would turn the air conditioning up in the middle of the night, and whether he could possibly muffle the noise with a pillow case. As he moved closer the dim light revealed a vapour cloud emerging from the vent and he felt the moistness of the cloud settle against his face. He swayed, struck by a sudden wave of dizziness.

An image flashed before his eyes – a woman's face contorted into a silent scream. That was joined by blood stained-little bodies, piled up on a kitchen floor. A man stared lifelessly up at him from a bed, its sheets stained red. He saw himself constructing a grisly monument on the front lawn, waving at a terrified looking mail carrier across the street, and was suddenly struck by the horror of his own actions. Distantly he realised that the shrieking and wailing had begun again but this time it was echoing around his own cell, and showed no signs of abating.

The next morning orderlies discovered body number four in the unlucky cell, with the new patient showing evidence of having broken a plastic air vent and used the shards to cut his own throat. The asylum administrator bowed to pressure from the security staff and agreed to have the room turned over to storage of janitorial supplies in order to end the rumours that circulated about the "cursed cell".

Down in the basement-level extreme security section of the asylum, the Scarecrow gazed up at an identical recessed air vent and pondered the potential result of combining more perfectly innocuous ingredients such as toothpaste, drain clear and just a drop or two of his secret supply of concentrated fear toxin.

Days in Arkham might be long and boring, but he had several little projects to keep his mind ticking over. So he lay back and waited for the next opportunity to gather supplies, and for another chance to secrete the vials amongst the air conditioning vents. Then the delightful screams would echo through the halls once more and for a brief while he would forget his humiliating incarceration; drinking in the fear that carried on the voices of the unfortunate occupants of the cells above.

**Fin**

**End note:** I do sometimes slightly worry about what's going on in my head. I mean, writing a bit where they're singing along to _Bad Romance_? *shudder*


	11. Sixty Seconds of Fame

**Prompt:** One Minute, first posted 23 November 2010

**Title:** Sixty Seconds of Fame  
><strong>Universe:<strong> General  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama/Humour  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Joker, unfortunate victims  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 497  
><strong>Summary: <strong>The Joker is very jealous of his place on Gotham's stage, and he doesn't like sharing it with talent show wannabes

**Sixty Seconds of Fame**

The Joker found it somewhat disheartening that even with the rise of derisory "entertainment" such as _Gotham's Got Talent_and the other let-the-lemmings-show-themselves-up television spectacles, it was still always so difficult to get volunteers for the audience participation segments of his act.

He strode across the studio floor, bathed in the powerful lights from the gantry above, and shook his head in quiet despondency as two of the more burly hired help had to physically drag a volunteer out from the crowd of cowering contestants. The other wannabe-stars made no move to try to help the girl; shepherded as they were by more henchmen cradling automatic weapons.

His less than eager volunteer looked to be a college student; young, with long over-peroxided hair and poor skin from a diet of alcohol and cafeteria food, inadequately hidden beneath a heavy covering of makeup. If that hadn't been enough then then two-sizes-too-small pastel pink tee-shirt with a jumble of Greek letters across the chest that pledged allegiance to one of Gotham University's more "party-focused" fraternities was a clue that even one of the Dork Knight's bird-brained little apprentices could have figured out.

The Joker took the girl by the arm and propelled her to stand in front of him, reading the name on the laminated tag affixed to her wonderfully clichéd tee-shirt. "Give a big hand for Cindy, folks!"

There were a few nervous claps from the audience, but a sharp nod followed by a warning shot into the ceiling soon resulted in a healthy round of applause.

"Now, Cindy, I'm afraid we don't have time to hear whatever half-baked sob story you've concocted about your parents' divorce, the crushing costs of college tuition or the years you spent as a chubby teenager with braces."

Resting his hands on her shoulders, he felt the girl shaking as he half-turned her to face him. He offered her a paternal smile.

"You've most likely got some Whitney Houston number to murder, so I'll be brief."

Ignoring the confusion in her gaze, he twisted her back once more and addressed the audience, gesturing at the sheep-pen of contestants.

"You all fight tooth and nail to get on shows like this in order to win your fifteen minutes of fame. But y'know, with the pace of modern life ever-increasing, fifteen minutes is really just too long for you lemmings to be cluttering up the Gotham stage. So, I decided it would be much better for you to just have one minute each so we can conclude this nonsense asap."

The Joker handed Cindy across to a nearby henchman who dragged her to the duct-tape cross marked out on the centre of the stage. There she stood shivering and looking around in panic.

"To make the proceedings totally fair, I've got a stopwatch and this .357 Magnum revolver." He pressed the button of the stopwatch with a razor-sharp grin. "Cindy, you've got sixty seconds. Next up will be bratty kid with the dancing Labrador."

**Fin**

**End note:** I really hate talent/reality shows (that might come through a little here) and don't watch them except by accident, so apologies for glaring inaccuracies!


	12. Carols with the Joker

**Prompt:** Common Sense, first posted 21 December 2010

**Title:** Carols with the Joker  
><strong>Universe:<strong> General  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama/Humour  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Joker 'n' Harley  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 500  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Guessing the Joker's favourite Christmas carol is not difficult...

**Carols with the Joker**

The Joker was starting to suspect that common sense was a decidedly uncommon attribute amongst the populace of Gotham.

"Attention, lemming-like citizens," he said, loudly addressing the crowd of warmly-wrapped families who had picked the wrong carol concert to attend on this winter evening. "There will be just one opportunity to do this properly, otherwise my little helpers will have to start shooting those who evidently can't follow basic instructions even when there are semi-automatic rifles pointed at their heads."

Several of the hulking henchmen cocked their weapons to emphasise this point; the grimness of their expressions a stark contrast to their oversized red and green elf costumes. Others were hurriedly taking the place of the news crew that had arranged to film the concert in order to end the evening news bulletin with a jolly rendition of _White Christmas_.

Despite his clear instructions there were still several panicked individuals in the crowd who looked set to bolt, and a half-dozen small children who were snivelling rather than stretching their vocal chords.

Resisting the urge to scratch at the itchy fake beard of his Santa outfit, the Joker tutted and resigned himself to these sorts of hiccups when he was forced to work with a crowd of amateurs around the holidays.

As time was quickly slipping away, the Joker left Harley and the hench-elves to supervise the carollers and got into position next to the fibreglass sleigh on stage. Santa couldn't be late for his cue.

At the allotted time the red 'live' light on the side of the camera blinked into life, and the Joker gave a merry wave and a "ho ho ho" for the kids.

"Merry Christmas everybody from the wonderfully festive location of the Gotham Springs carol concert! I'm afraid that your usual reporter indulged in a little too much eggnog and has gone for a quiet lie down in the trunk of his car, but luckily Old Saint Nick himself, yours truly, was available to take over."

As the Joker gestured outwards, the camera panned out and across the crowd of terrified-looked carollers. "Now, I'm joined today by a whole crowd of families from the local area who are all just dying to get on with the show, and there's one very special song they've got lined up for the good folks of Gotham tonight. Harley, if you please?"

Half-frozen in her short fur-edged Mrs Santa outfit, Harley still beamed with delight as she waved a tinsel-covered baton. "Five, six, seven, eight!"

Quavering with a mixture of fear and uncertainty, the crowd stumbled into song.

"Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg…"

With a peal of delighted laughter the Joker spurred the singers on, and with some prodding here and there by the hench-elves' rifles, the crowd was soon singing loud and clear.

The Joker gave a little jig for the camera and wondered how many verses they'd get through before the Dork Knight turned up and his Christmas Eve fun would really begin…

**Fin**

**End note:** Merry Christmas, Seasons Greeings and generally goodwill and good mulled wine to all!


	13. Lost and Found

**Prompt:** Lost, first posted 7 January 2011

**Title:** Lost and Found  
><strong>Universe:<strong> General  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Genre:<strong> General  
><strong>Characters:<strong> A young Harleen Quinzel and an older Harley Quinn  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 1,616  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Some creative writing leads to a New Year's resolution.

**Lost and Found**

Harleen Quinzel's seventh grade English teacher was an imposing vulture-necked woman with a bristly blonde moustache, a collection of high-necked blouses in every possible shade of brown and what seemed to be a grudge against anyone born after the Declaration of Independence. This dislike manifested itself through sharp-tongued rebukes for "linguistic sloppiness", regular detentions for anyone found to be misusing semicolons and incredibly uncreative creative writing tasks – usually based around "what I did over the summer vacation", "what I did last weekend" or even once, unmemorably, "what I did in recess this morning".

But there was an exception to this boring rule on the first day of class after the winter break when Mrs Martin wrote "lost and found" on the chalkboard with her precise, bony fingers.

"I expect two sides of writing – neat, no white-out, and no three inch margins on both edges – on what you have lost and what you have found over the last year. You may begin now, in silence please."

When no more instructions were forthcoming and no one else seemed inclined to risk Mrs Martin's wrath by asking themselves, Harleen hesitantly raised her hand.

"Mrs Martin? When you say things we've lost and things we've found, do you mean lost things like socks or a TV remote, or more… sorta, metaphorical things?" She wavered slightly as she struggled to come up with some examples. "Like maybe losing the chance to do something, or losing in a contest?"

"You may write about losing and finding whatever you choose, so long as you use correct grammar, punctuation and spelling," Mrs Martin replied snippily, and Harleen got the distinct sense that she really couldn't care less as long as there were two sides of neat handwriting at the end of the exercise.

As the rest of the class uncapped their pens and got reluctantly to work, Harleen was briefly tempted to re-hash another 'summer vacation' essay and see if Mrs Martin even noticed. But a detention was bound to clash with gymnastics practice, and she couldn't afford to fall further behind after the winter break. So Harleen gave a small sigh and wrote out the title in her neatest handwriting, her mind already half-way to the blissful whirl of a new bars routine.

Starting small, she detailed the miscellaneous objects she recalled misplacing over the last few months. One of her favourite hairclips with a pink butterfly on it. A five dollar note that she'd hidden in a book for safekeeping, but now couldn't remember which book she'd used. At least three socks, leaving her with an odd single patterned in red and white stripes. A heart-shaped locket she'd been given by her Nana as a birthday present, which she suspected Emily Wilson had stolen after her former friend had turned into a back-stabbing little gossip last month.

Harleen worked her way down the page, finding a rhythm to her writing. She'd lost respect for Emily after their falling out. There were all the hurtful things she'd said – spreading rumours around the class, and being spiteful in a dozen little ways. She wasn't upset to have lost Emily's friendship.

She also seemed to have lost her chance with Luke Jeffries, since the coolest, tallest and best-looking boy in the class was regularly seen to follow Emily around the lunchroom like a lost puppy. But if he was genuinely interested in a shrew like Emily, then maybe he wasn't much of a real loss either.

The state gymnastics tournament. Her floor routine had been a knockout, and she was a shoe-in for first place. But a nasty bout of food poisoning meant she was home in bed when she should have been strutting her stuff in front of the judges, so she'd lost her rightful win.

She'd also lost patience with Coach Sanders when he kept finding fault with her work on the bars – as if he really knew how difficult it was, a middle-aged man who could barely see his toes anymore, let alone complete tight spins and stick a good landing.

Harleen was just getting into a paragraph-long tirade about the unreasonableness of hiring a gymnastics coach who probably couldn't manage a cartwheel if he was suspended on wires from the ceiling of the gym when her train of thought was interrupted by the bell that signalled the end of the class. She'd got so wrapped up in a series of losses that she was well onto page three and hadn't even reached any "founds" yet! Not that Mrs Martin would probably notice – from the disinterested way the teacher collected the sheets of paper and filed them away in a drawer of her desk, it was unlikely she would do more than scan the assignments for white-out spots and misspellings.

As she flexed her slightly aching hand and filed out of the room with the others heading to the chemistry labs or physics class, Harleen wondered why she had bothered to put so much effort into an assignment that no one would ever bother to read properly, or count for an overall class grade average. It had sounded stupid at first, but she guessed that thinking about things she had lost and the effects those losses had was actually pretty interesting. Whether it was realising what a little troll Emily Wilson had been and accepting she was not worth being upset over, or resolving to let Coach Sanders's nitpicking wash over her, Harleen now had some solid resolutions for the new school term.

She walked optimistically down the corridor amongst the bustle of other students, confident that this year would be a time for finding rather than losing. A new Harleen for a New Year – she'd find some new, better friends, a new confidence in herself and her abilities, and maybe even a new cool guy who was interested in her for a change. If Mrs Martin set the same assignment next year, she'd be ready to write part two!

Years later Harleen Quinzel – according to the nameplate fixed to her cell door, although she preferred Harley Quinn these days – was completing a remarkably familiar assignment set by her state-appointed therapist. She never knew that middle school teachers and psychiatrists evidently got their ideas from the same book – she figured it must have been one of the ones she skipped over in college.

Harley might have only had a set of wax crayons (Arkham patients were limited to the mini packs of crayons more commonly found in fast food restaurants due to several bloody incidents involving the Joker and easily shatterable ballpoints) but she was steadily filling pages with the neat printing she'd developed in school. There were many boring hours to be filled in Arkham, and without the deadline of bells or Mrs Martin's glare from the back of the classroom, Harley was free to write as much as she liked.

Joany – her former colleague Dr Leland – seemed to think that it would be good for her to put time and effort into answering the questions. She'd said something about it being beneficial to her mental state – that the process might remind her of being a doctor again. Harley just thought it made a change from the 273rd game of tic-tac-toe against herself.

The scattered pages in front of her detailed a number of significant losses over the last year. Her licence to practice as a psychiatrist was a biggy – she'd always thought she looked pretty good in a white coat, but that loss was by far outweighed by the fact that she no longer had to listen to dull people talk about their dull problems and then fill in dull forms about it all. Other than Mistah J she couldn't say that any of her patients had been remotely interesting – if she was honest she could barely even recall their names. Losing that millstone of boring responsibility had been wonderful!

Around the same time she'd also lost her liberty, to the extent that she now occupied a cell at Arkham rather than a pokey little office. That wasn't exactly a shocking transition! Connected with this was the loss of her old flat – a rundown apartment above a drycleaners that had cost most of her paycheck each month, so again that wasn't much of a loss. She hadn't spoken to her parents in almost a year so didn't have much of a relationship to lose, and the closest thing to a work friendship was the coffee she had once a week with Joany – so the fact that she now saw her three times a week in therapy sessions was an improvement there!

Harley remembered how she'd once resolved to turn her series of losses into more positive finds. As a young teenager those sort of promises to herself barely used to last more than a week – now she realised that she'd got it all wrong to start with anyway! Most losses and setbacks had a silver lining, and since she'd had her eyes opened by Mistah J she was confident that she could find the funny side in just about anything. She was ready and waiting for whatever life threw at her, and she had a juicer and a whole heap of sugar ready to turn out lemonade by the gallon.

She felt she'd done pretty well with the losses, but Harley wasn't sure whether Joan would approve of the points she'd put down on the found side of things so far. That page was mostly taken up with the words "MISTAH J" written in elaborately decorated capital letters and dotted with hearts and flowers, along with the smaller entry and a smiley face for #2 – "a sense of humour".

**Fin**

**End note:** I kind of ran out of time with this a little, so it got cut down and rejigged more than I wanted. Hopefully it's enough in itself to make sense though!


	14. Read and Return

**Prompt:** Caveat Emptor, first posted 12 January 2011

**Title:** Read and Return  
><strong>Universe:<strong> General  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Humour  
><strong>Characters:<strong> OC bookstore employee & The Riddler  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 500  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Some bookstores have needlessly petty rules on when you can and can't return a puzzle book you've already scribbled all over. Harsh.

**Read and Return**

A weekday afternoon manning the customer service desk of a well-known bookstore was not an exciting shift, and the young red-haired sales assistant had spent the first hour after lunch listlessly re-arranging the closest shelves by height, then colour, and was regretfully about to return them to their original head-office-approved alphabetical state before the manager noticed and issued everyone with another 'Shelving Procedures' memo.

She spotted the man wearing a funky-looking green hat as he entered the store, and darted back behind the counter when she saw he was making a beeline for her desk. He looked slightly disgruntled, but even dealing with a complaint would break up the boredom of shelving books.

"Excuse me; I would like to get a refund, if you please," the man said politely enough as he stepped up to the counter, handing across what looked to be a quiz book.

She took the book from his hand and glanced at its condition, noting the tell-tale cracking of the spine and misalignment of pages that indicated it had been well-thumbed; most likely another read-and-return attempt. She leafed through a few pages and was surprised to see notes in red ink scribbled across may of the questions. Someone had also filled in all of the answer grids – again in ink! This was slightly less subtle than most return attempts.

She gave the suited man her best 'firm but pleasant' customer service desk smile.

"I'm sorry sir but I can't let you return this – it's been written in."

The man's expression remained blandly quizzical beneath that wonderfully bizarre bowler hat, and he made no effort to take the book back from her as she held it out. She wasn't sure he had understood her.

"Since you've written in it the book is no longer in a saleable condition, sir," she explained, gesturing to the book in her hand. "I'm sorry but I can't accept it back for a refund."

"Well of course I wouldn't want you to sell it to anyone else," the man replied, looking faintly aghast at the prospect. "No one else should be placed in a position to accidentally purchase such a childish attempt at a puzzle book. I'm seriously considering making a claim against the publisher for misrepresentation."

He firmly pointed to the cover of the book, which bore the title '_Impossible Puzzles'_ and the strapline '_hours of brain-stretching entertainment_!'.

"Those puzzles were neither brain-stretching nor entertaining, and I completed them in just over 27 minutes."

"I'm not sure that's an approved reason for granting a refund," she explained hesitantly, then had to cut the man off thirty seconds in to what looked set to be a lengthy tirade against the purveyors of poorly-written puzzle books. "Let me call my manger over, sir, he might be able to help you out here."

Stubborn policy-obsessed manager versus stubborn red-pen-wielding customer – who would win? Would blood be shed?

She wondered just what the official head-office procedure for dealing with aggrieved, bowler-hatted puzzle nerds was anyway…

**Fin**

**End note: **Yay for greater organisation and not leaving writing this to 11pm on the night before the deadline! Although it is still all quite random. If the manager isn't careful there could well be blood shed; I don't think Eddie would content himself with a strongly worded letter to their head office.

On a random trivia note, I actually find shelving books quite soothing and had a childhood ambition to be a librarian. Alas for lost childhood dreams! ;D


	15. Slipping Away

**Prompt:** Slip, first posted 9 February 2011

**Title:** Slipping Away  
><strong>Universe:<strong> General  
><strong>Genre:<strong> General  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Joker 'n' Harley  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13 (for suggestiveness and references to not-being-very-nice, but this is Joker and Harley so what do you expect?)  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 500  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Joker's on his way out of Arkham and ponders whether he should make it a double escape.

**Slipping Away**

The Joker casually tossed his strait jacket over one shoulder and dabbed at the blood spatter on his cheek with a trailing sleeve. On his way past the security desk he paused, glancing at the dingy monitors showing the high-security cells. In the bottom row a pigtailed figure could be seen sat cross-legged on the narrow cot, cuddling a stuffed doll of some kind.

Oh right – Harley. He knew he'd forgotten something.

His first inclination was to stroll on over to her wing and spring her as well. Otherwise who would he use as a distraction if slightly more competent guards turned up? Who would fetch his spare suits and guns from the storage unit by the docks and arrange any necessary dry cleaning? He had no intention of doing it himself when Harley seemed to enjoy running errands for him so much.

But then again… it would be nice to have a bit of time on the outside just to himself. One of the many faults that the oh-so-generous universe had blessed Harley with was her physical neediness, and not just in _that_ way. She seemed to always be attached to him – clutching at his sleeve, kneading a non-existent knot in his shoulders, draping herself around his ankles like a cat.

It was a far cry from the thin veneer of professionalism that kept her at a safe distance when he first turned his attention to the transparently scheming little blonde doctor that Arkham had kindly gifted him with during a slow couple of months in-between Bat-taunting sessions. His little shadow's concept of personal space seemed to have been tossed aside along with the white coat, medical diploma and the other rusty shackles of her previous life.

Now if they were walking down the street she would slip her hand into his, swinging their arms back and forth like a couple of over-excited schoolgirls. It was funny the first time; after an unsuccessful bank robbery that resulted in the deaths of several dozen customers and staff – always a positive end to a heist in his book – a merry skip down the middle of the sidewalk away from the bank seemed appropriately jubilant.

But like an indulged toddler, once was never enough for Harley – she would try it again and again. She would also crawl up to sit in his lap when he was working and cuddle close to whisper nonsense into his ear when he was trying to watch his news reports. No matter how many slaps and shoves and stinging rebukes he sent her way she would always be hanging off him again in some way before her tears had even dried.

It was kind of cute that she seemed to need physical contact with him on the same level as she needed oxygen. In a hilariously pathetic way. But he wondered how long Harley could hold her breath for?

Joker turned his back on the monitors and continued out towards the main doors with a jaunty whistle.

**Fin**

**End note:** Poor Harls. I'll have to make it up to her sometime with a fluffier entry!


	16. Preventable Losses

**Prompt:** Slip, first posted 13 February 2011

**Title:** Preventable Losses  
><strong>Universe:<strong> General  
><strong>Genre:<strong> General with a touch of angst  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Bruce or Batman depending on your perspective  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 496  
><strong>Summary:<strong> A necessary morning ritual after a hard night's work.

**Preventable Losses**

The night was nearly at an end and one more criminal was behind bars, but at a cost. The smell of soot was still fresh on his costume but the clinical neatness of the flickering on-screen text was an emotionless recording of the facts.

Sheila Gregory. 47 years old. Divorced mother of two teenage children; one in the first year of college, one at a local high school. Worked part time as a paralegal. Had recently joined an internet dating site and was at the bar for her first date since her divorce two years earlier. Suffered severe lacerations in the blast; bled out before the EMTs arrived.

It was in his nature to be meticulous about these things. In the solitary darkness of the caves he kept records of everything – crime patterns, his observations over countless hours of patrols, details of the sentences meted out to those he had assisted in bringing to justice. The details of those he had failed to save were no less important; a separate entry for each individual.

Alistair Scott. 21 years old. A junior at Gotham U, working shifts at the bar to help pay his tuition. Liked by his college buddies and doted on by elderly parents who were quietly retired in a rural Illinois farming town. Close to the source of the blast, he died instantly from massive trauma to the chest.

The Gotham press seemed far more interested in the antics of Bruce Wayne's latest "arm candy" than fully reporting the all-too-common fatal outcome of a disagreement between rival gangs or an armed robbery gone wrong. The bizarre heists carried out by former Arkham residents got more publicity, but the focus was inevitably the "celebrity" criminal rather than the victims. He usually resorted to hacking in the police files to get more information on the deceased.

Jimmy "Coops" Cooper. 32 years old. He ostensibly worked as head of security at one of Gotham's less salubrious nightclubs, but actually ran his own protection racket as well as dabbling in a number of knock-off pharmaceuticals. Several convictions for assault and failure to pay maintenance to two of his three ex-wives. Sources later indicated that he was at the bar waiting to meet a new supplier of cheap Chinese painkillers. His criminal background still didn't warrant the fractured skull from falling debris; he had died on the way to the ER.

The most important entry came last: where had he slipped up? Could he have found the explosives earlier, or tracked down the bomber? There was always something more he could have done. If he did not analyse his mistakes he could never hope to address and avoid them in the future, and more people would die, needlessly.

Beyond the caves the sun began to rise, but in the cool darkness Bruce continued to stare at the pictures of the three strangers who had each met a preventable untimely end the previous night. His work was not yet done.

**Fin**

**End note:**Just a brief experiment, but yes you read that right - it didn't have Joker, Harley or any of my other more usual suspects in - just poor self-blaming Bruce. Who needs costumed crazies or a city full of mob bosses to cause you grief when you can heap guilt on yourself from the privacy of your cave?

One of the victims gets their name from a combination of two managers at work, while another is a slightly altered friend from school. This is more due to lack of imagination than any murderous intent towards them on my part!


	17. Bonkers Ball Pit Fun

**Prompt:** Perfect, first posted 3 March 2011

**Title:** Bonkers Ball Pit Fun  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama/Humour  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Joker n Harley  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 921  
><strong>Summary:<strong> What could be more fun than a hideout with a ball pit?

**Bonkers Ball Pit Fun**

The Joker bobbed gently up and down as he lay sprawled out on the air mattress; eyes closed and half-dreaming of palm trees and fruity drinks with more over-ripe fruit and paper umbrellas than actual alcohol. He was just wondering whether it was worth waking up sufficiently to order Harley out to find the closest grocery store that sold cocktail cherries when his nap was rudely disturbed by a tidal wave of plastic balls colliding with his face.

"Yahoo! This place is the bestest hideout ever! Dontcha love ball pits Mistah J?"

Oblivious to having almost capsized him off his inflatable lounge chair into the ball pit, Harley dived back under the multi-coloured mountain of balls only to pop back up for air a few feet further away like a particularly hyperactive prairie dog.

The silly girl had such little imagination – sure, an abandoned children's playcentre had a few good structural features like slides, a ball pit and a working cotton candy machine, but that run-down old fish processing factory had come with so many interestingly pointy, scrapey, and guts-removing instruments. Plus Harley had nearly thrown up every time they rolled back the doors and the wave of musty fishy air flowed out. He really thought it was a tie between the two of them.

"You're very easy to please," he said as he threw one of the plastic balls back in her direction, watching it neatly bounce off her forehead with a soft thunk before he settled back down on his now stationary air mattress and closed his eyes.

His peace was not to last. Joker felt rather than saw the turbulence of Harley moving through the ball pit, getting closer to where he was lounging on the surface. He half opened one suspicious eye to see what she was doing and found her a few feet away, paused with a hopeful expression on her face.

"Why don't you come and join me, Puddin'?" she asked with a flirtatious glint in her eyes that caused him to give a sigh of resignation. "The water's lovely!" she added, mock-backstroking towards the edge of the sunken ball pit area and sending stray balls flying with every flailing arm.

She was clearly determined to disrupt his quiet time. Didn't she realise that some people were up all night, scheming and wracking their brains for ways to bring screams of laughter and horror to this fair city? All she'd had to do was a few pages of chores, collect supplies from several warehouses across town, feed the hyenas, pick up some dry cleaning and rub his feet to help stimulate the creative sectors of his brain. Practically nothing! He supposed that he could still send her out for cocktail fruit, but his interest in overly decorative tropical drinks had faded.

There had to be some way to get some peace and quiet around here, even if just for the duration of a half-hour catnap…

Across the ball pit, Harley was doing a fair impression of a sea lion having an epileptic fit in the middle of a Sea World show. He coughed discretely, catching her attention.

"Did you know, Harleykins, there have been several documented cases of rattlesnakes being found living in the bottom of ball pits," he said in a carefully conversational tone. At the mention of rattlesnakes, Harley instantly stalled in her sea lion-like flailing.

"Rattlesnakes?" she gave a nervous laugh and looked cautiously around at the seemingly harmless plastic balls. "That's not really true, is it Puddin'? What would rattlesnakes eat in somewhere like this?"

"Oh, lots of things get lost in ball pits, Pumpkin," he nodded at her sagely. "Half-eaten burgers and hotdogs, dropped candy, medium-sized toddlers."

"A rattlesnake couldn't eat a toddler!" she protested, inching slowly closer to the steps at the side of the pen. It was taking a lot of effort to restrain his giggles at her gullibility.

"No, but you see the snakes don't know that, so they often give it a darn good try." He waved a casual hand over the area of the ball pit. "Y'know, an area of this size could probably support a small family group. Since this place has been shut for six months, if there were any then they'd have to be pretty hungry by now…"

"I think I've had enough time in the ball pit," Harley said in a wavering tone as she stumbled over her own feet in an attempt to clamber out of the pen as quickly as possible. She brushed down her costume several times as though checking for invisible snakes that might have been wrapped around her legs.

"Oh, that's a shame," Joker clucked with mock-sincerity. "Still, since you're out now, hows about firing up the cotton candy machine? I'll stay here and keep watch for any rattlesnakes so you'll know if it's safe to play in later."

"Okay Puddin'," Harley conceded. "But be careful." She blew him a kiss and disappeared into the storeroom murmuring something about 'her man being _so_ brave…'

Joker chuckled quietly to himself and settled back on his air mattress for a blessedly peaceful snooze; pondering how delightful it would be to smuggle ball-shaped canisters of happy gas into playcentres across Gotham. Parents were always simpering about the joyous laughter of their precious little darlings – what more could they ask for than to hear the laughter of their little darlings continuously?

As he drifted off, he also wondered about the practicalities of borrowing a few baby rattlesnakes from the zoo.

**Fin**

**End note:**I confess this is very loosely connected to the prompt. If pressed, I will claim that either it was a "perfect crime" Joker luring Harley away to get some peace and quiet, or or will be a "perfect crime" to hide happy poisonous gas/snakes in ball bits across town (and, in poor Harley's case, in the hideout probably too!).

Mostly I just got stuck at the last minute and could think of nothing but ball pits and nonsense!


	18. Hugs Tiem Now

**Prompt:** Drop, first posted 17 March 11

**Title:** Hugs Tiem Now  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU  
><strong>Genre:<strong> General  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Joker n Harley  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 317  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Hug time!

**Hugs Tiem Now**

Harley's favouritest place to be in the whole wide world was in the arms of her Puddin'. Whether he had scooped her up to twirl around in whooping celebration as dozens of detonators went off in perfect harmony across the city, or he had just been sat morosely in front of a stack of torn-up scribbled plans and she had snuck quietly onto his lap, desperate to find some small way she could help with his work. Her advances were usually brushed off with varying degrees of physical emphasis, but sometimes he would let her stay and she would rest her cheek against the cool slipperiness of his vibrant silk shirt and reel off half-remembered playground gags, limericks and even corny knock-knock jokes – something that Mistah J always said triggered some creatively murderous ideas for his work. He would laugh when she asked if she was helping, but she persevered and she thought he let her stay more often than he used to.

Once he got working on a good one, Harley would often drift off into a contented catnap, lulled by the regular skritch skritch of a master plan being spread across the page. But it always ended the same way – with her getting a bruised behind when Mistah J would leap to his feet with a sudden burst of genius, dropping her onto the unforgiving floor with an undignified squawk of protest. There was no chance of any further blissful cuddling up together – Mistah J would have an urgent need for green food colouring and beeswax, or some sort of endangered seabird eggs, or a dozen yards of high-tensile steel cable and thousands of firecrackers. As a dutiful assistant she would be despatched to track down every item on his shopping list, and with a rueful sigh she would go, counting down the seconds until she had another chance to cuddle up with her Puddin'.

**Fin**

**End note:** Just a short one from me since I was running a bit late for time! The lol-cat title spelling is deliberate; Harley would totally love lol-cats. And Joker would hate them. Hugs tiem for alls!


	19. All Things Nice

**Prompt:** Sugar and Spice, first posted 17 March 2011

**Title:** All Things Nice  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU  
><strong>Genre:<strong> General  
><strong>Characters:<strong> OC and Harley  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 2,190  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Life is tough for newbie security guards at Arkham

**All Things Nice**

His new blue uniform was scratchy and uncomfortable, and they'd given him a badge that read "D Waters – Probationer", which made him sound like a complete tool. But Darren Waters was now the proud owner of a swipe card that opened every door at Arkham Asylum and, more importantly, both a collapsible baton and a can of concentrated strength pepper spray. Morning one of his new job and they'd already armed him! This was so much better than all those years at Burgers R Us.

Darren stared in the staff room mirror and tried in vain to make his dorky new hat sit right on his freshly waxed and tousled hair. Apparently they wouldn't issue tasers to new security staff until they finished their three month probationary period – something to do with a nasty sounding accident involving some dumb kid getting himself stunned with his own taser and then being half-drowned in one of the bathrooms. Darren was sure that had been totally made up to scare the more gullible newbies, and he scoffed as he warmed up for his shift by repeatedly extending and collapsing his new baton, giving a few good swipes to an invisible opponent's head and groin. He threw in a few kick-ass Jet Li moves for good measure and grinned in satisfaction at what he saw – he was ready for action.

If Darren had been the sort of young man who thought things through properly, he might have spent more time considering why Arkham Asylum was willing to pay its unskilled and unqualified security staff applicants significantly above minimum wage for what sounded like cushy work. But Darren was, in his own eyes, an ambitious young go-getter who didn't need to tread the same dull path as everyone else. Long ago he had decided: screw community college, and screw burger-flipping or monkey-wrenching in Dullsvile, Montana, the same small town his parents grew up in. He was better than that – he was going places. The bright lights of Gotham were calling.

Reporting to the main security office, Darren looked pityingly at the balding, middle-aged supervisor sat behind his desk. That poor lump was here for good, while he was just passing through on his way to bigger things. This security gig was only to tide him over while he figured out The Plan. Maybe acting, or stunt work, or even setting up his own nightclub – something that paid big bucks and that would have chicks falling over themselves to do whatever he wanted. Soon he was going to be a big fish in this town.

"D Waters?" Baldy read from a clipboard of shift schedules while simultaneously filling in a boring looking pile of forms. "You're on Level 4; High Security Female Wing. Report to Johnson – he'll be your team leader."

"Female Wing?" Darren asked, disbelievingly. "Like… girls?"

"I wouldn't refer to them as that in front of some of the more… touchy inmates. Not unless you want to be fed to a giant Venus Flytrap next time Isley gets released for 'good behaviour' by the equally delusional staff headshrinkers." Baldy said in a deadpan tone, without raising his eyes from the piles of paperwork. "Just run along and try not to get yourself hurt on the first day; we like to try to keep our probationers alive until at least their two week evaluation."

Darren shook his head in wonder at the fruit loops they seemed to hire in this place, and made his way slowly across the asylum site to Level 4 of the Female Wing by following the crudely-drawn paper map he'd been issued along with the more cool equipment that morning. Working in a building full of crazy chicks wasn't exactly what he'd been expecting – he guessed he wouldn't be called on to leap into action with his new baton as much as he'd been hoping. Though maybe there could be action of another kind… he'd seen enough internet porn and pay-per-view on the adult channels to know what went on in female prisons. Okay this was a nut-house but there were still bars on the windows – same difference. Maybe this would be a lucky assignment afte rall.

Johnson, it turned out, was your archetypal security guard: overweight, slow of expression and seemingly welded to his security station chair. If he'd been munching on a donut the picture would be complete.

"New guy, right? Good stuff – it's nice to have some young blood around here. I'm sure you're raring to go so let's start you off in the deep end; throw you in, sink-or-swim, y'know?"

Darren wondered if he had a choice, given this guy looked like he only left the comfort of his reclining chair when he was forced to take a leak. Since it was his first day he decided to keep his mouth shut on that opinion.

"Sounds great, man," he said with a broad false grin. "I'm all for swimming rather than drowning."

"Excellent! You can just get started and learn the ropes as you go – I'll always be available on the radio if you need me, just press 9-1-2. The daily schedule is listed in the book here – mostly escorting the ladies to their shrink appointments, apart from lunchtime and I'll be around to give you a hand then."

Ahh, so the prospect of access to food might motivate lardy to leave his chair – Darren made a mental note of that.

"Sure thing. I'll holler if I need you, but I'm sure I can handle it." He said, patting his new baton and can of pepper spray affectionately. Johnson seemed to have returned to the sports section of his newspaper, so Darren collected the daily schedule book and went for an orienting walk down the hall.

Disappointingly the first few cells were empty – the book said something about group therapy, so he figured they must all be off sharing their feelings or maybe chanting something about charkas – most of his psychological knowledge had been gained from TV shopping channel adverts and the odd episode of Oprah, so he wasn't too clear on what they would do to 'cure' criminally insane people. Didn't they used to zap people's brains with electricity? That would have been awesome to watch, but they probably didn't do that anymore.

Darren was wandering almost aimlessly down the corridor, lost in these thoughts, and didn't realise that he had reached a section of occupied cells.

"Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo…" he heard someone calling, and looked up to see one of the inmates – patients – whatever – standing on the other side of the Perspex cell frontage a few feet in front of him, knocking and waving to try to get his attention. She was blonde, and kind of hot even in the shapeless orange jumpsuits they obviously issued as uniforms, and she looked normal enough. The pigtails were a little weird, but she reminded him of one of the sluttier members of the cheerleading team he'd had a crush on in highschool. Things were looking up again.

"Hey, new security guy, what time is it?" the blonde woman asked chirpily.

"Uhh…" he looked down at his watch. "Almost ten?"

"I thought so – I've got an appointment with Dr Barclay in less than five minutes, and you're probably supposedly to be escortin' me right about now. It won't be on your printout," she added, as he looked confusedly at his list, "cuz they only rescheduled it this morning. It was supposedly to be this afternoon but then Croc had one of his funny turns yesterday and all those ambulances got called and loads of us had appointments bumped, and the word is Bats apparently brought Harvey back last night and ol' Jeremiah had a tizzy about having him ready for one of the capacity hearings by Monday, and everythin's even more doolally than normal around here. Helluva first day for you, right?"

Darren let this jumble of words stream over him, barely following half of it. He wondered if he should call Johnson back at the desk and ask what to do, but then he thought again. It was his first day and he wanted to show some initiative – some backbone. He didn't want to run and ask permission for every little thing. His job was escort patients to appointments, and that was all he had to do here – the whole building had security cameras, high-tech locks, barbed wire fences, so even if there was trouble, blondie wasn't going to get very far. Plus he had to have nearly 100 pounds on her, as well as his new toys. It was embarrassing that he'd almost called for help in the first place.

"Okay, sure," he said in what he hoped was an appropriately authoritative tone. "Let's get you down to wherever you're supposed to be."

He waved his ID card over the scanner and the cell door swung open. The woman obediently held her hands up unprompted as he struggled to unclip his new handcuffs from his belt.

"Sorry," he said as he finally unclipped them and attached them to her wrists. "That's not too tight, right?"

"You could probably make them a little tighter unless you want them to fall off half-way down the corridor," she offered, in an apologetically critical assessment of his handcuff-application skills. He adjusted them and she nodded. "Much better. I'm Harley by the way."

"Oh, er, hi. I'm Darren." Were you supposed to do polite introductions before you handcuffed someone? This was all a steep learning curve. "Shall we get going?"

He led her out of the cell, unsure whether he should keep a tight hold of her elbow or follow just behind or in front of her, and settled for slightly to one side and just resting his hand on her. He swiped his card again and the door closed behind them as he reached for his map.

"Dr Barclay's office is…"

"Level 2 – we generally take the elevator at the other end of the hallway," she chipped in helpfully.

"Thanks." They set off and Darren found himself strangely self-conscious, wondering if he should try to make conversation with her. What did you talk about with someone in an institution for the criminally insane? 'Did you catch the game last night?' 'Do you come here often?' 'Have you actually killed anybody?'

"I know it's hard when you start out here," the blonde woman said, interrupting his swirling thoughts. He looked over and saw her giving him a sad smile. "I actually used to work here myself, once."

"Seriously?" What did you say to that? He knew half the staff had to be nuts – the security supervisor for definite. He'd probably be admitted next.

"Yeah. Don't worry – not everyone who works here ends up comin' back as a patient. Just a kooky few." She nodded her head in the direction of the lift panel. "Second floor." He pressed it dumbly.

"So, uh, what did you happened to get you stuck in here? If it's okay to ask, I mean."

"Oh, y'know how it is," she shrugged. "You fall in love with a handsome psychopathic clown and one day it just makes sense to steal a whole bunch of stuff from a costume shop and break him out of the joint, then go on the run in a hilariously murderous crime spree all across town."

Even topical-affairs-avoiding Montana-dwelling dropouts like Darren knew that 'psychopathic clown' and the adjectives 'hilariously murderous' could only refer to one, very bad, topic. He wavered uncertainly, wondering if it was too late to call his supervisor.

His decision was made for him. As the elevator doors opened Harley gave him a sweet smile and a hard shove, while retaining a handcuffed hold of the pepper spray cannister on his belt. Darren collided with the back of the elevator and stumbled to the floor, only to be met with a face-full of burning spray that made him choke and cough, blinded by instantly formed floods of tears. He felt rather than saw Harley help herself to his handcuff keys, baton and ID badge.

"Y'know, 'D Waters – Probationer', it's a real shame they took you newbies' tasers away after Mistah J tried drowning that runty ginger kid in the bathroom. Back then we could just zap you a little and you stayed down, but now we've got to do it the old-fashioned way." Through his coughs he heard the distinctive sound of the collapsible baton being extended, and he tried but failed to edge further away in the confines of the tiny elevator. "No hard feelin's though sweetie – you baby security guards are just so easy to play, it's too hard to resist!"

Darren woke up several hours later in the infirmary with a head full of stitches and one angry security supervisor waiting to interview him about a patient escaping barely ten minutes into his first shift. As soon as he could focus his eyes, he asked one of the nurses to find him whatever forms he needed to sign to resign from his morning of employment at Arkham. He was heading back to Dullsville on the next available train.

**Fin**

**End note: **Since I made him quite a jerk, I'm not so bothered that he ended up clubbed unconcious in an elevator. Harley was being pretty nice. Frankly if the Joker had appeared he would have had a much more unpleasant end; he got away lightly.

This is another late one, and it was only supposed to be 500-1000 words. I have no idea what happened or why I am still awake and finishing it!


	20. Work In Progress

**Prompt:** Yes or No, first posted 4 April 2011

**Title:** Work In Progress  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Joker/Harley  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13 (implied violence)  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 500  
><strong>Summary:<strong> His chirpy new assistant is a work-in-progress, even if she doesn't realise it herself.

**Work In Progress**

The day his doctor threw away her sanity along with her medical licence, the Joker gained a perky, blonde, and limitlessly annoying assistant. But he soon found that his new harlequin's most redeeming quality was her eager willingness to do just about whatever he could possibly imagine – as long as it made him happy. Exploring this unexpected feature of his new toy provided a pleasant diversion between intensive Bat-scheming. Every guy should have a hobby.

"You were right, Mistah J – holdin' up a bank _is_ like stealin' candy from a blind baby," Harley babbled, eyes shining with fervour as she skipped and span amongst the overflowing bags of banknotes cascading across the floor.

The Joker stepped in and caught her mid-spin, giving her a paternal smile that did little to hide the predatory glint in his eyes. It was amazing what a few honeyed words could do to such a malleable mind.

"See? I told you my little Harley-girl would do just fine. She's made me so proud today…"

Her squeak of joy was muffled in the fabric of his jacket, but it reverberated through his chest as he chuckled in response.

"Even the kid, Mistah J?" she asked, voice quavering with uncertainty as she looked between him and the family carefully arranged around their own dinner table, bound and gagged. "He's only a rugrat, it barely seems worth the bullet, y'know?"

Sometimes it took more stick than carrot, and his fingers itched for a particularly hefty one to whack the gibbering imbecile over the head for daring to question his orders.

"This isn't the time to listen to your ovaries, Harley! Ignore whatever hormonal nonsense is flooding the few brain cells you were blessed with and finish the job. Use your imagination and some silverware if you don't want to waste a bullet."

Her anguish at being the cause of his anger was palpable, and he would later smooth it away as he stroked her blood-splattered hair and praised her for doing a good job – who knew a grapefruit spoon could be so versatile?

"Be a pet and go get me these chemicals, some kittens to test them on and ten pounds of plastic explosives, would you? Oh, and a happy meal. With all six kinds of toy. And a curly straw."

"Sure thing, Puddin! I'll be back in half a jiffy."

The Weed might think that offering her a prickly shoulder to cry on and dripping poison sap in her ear about how awful he was would undo his patient work. But with a snap of his fingers Harley always scampered back to his heels, fawningly eager to make up for whatever transgression led him to kick her out in the first place.

He sometimes wondered if she even _could_ say no to him anymore – a serious refusal, rather than the games they played.

He hoped that one day she would.

So he could push her further.

Or one of them would die trying.

**Fin**

**End note: **This is very much inspired by "Gameplay" by princessebee, which is one of my favourite non-plotty fics from her. That looks at the idea of Joker pushing Harley further and further in a more R-rated D/S hot-under-the-collar kind of way, but I've borrowed the concept for a significantly briefer look at him leading her into doing just whatever the hell he can think up next.


	21. Luck of the Draw

**Prompt:** When In Rome, first posted 12 May 11

**Title:** Luck of the Draw  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Various Henchfolk, the Joker  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 500  
><strong>Summary:<strong> The average length of employment for a henchman who signs up to work for the Joker is a little over five weeks.

**Luck of the Draw**

The average length of employment for a henchman who signs up to work for the Joker is a little over five weeks.

Stefan took a swig from the bottle and gave a dopily satisfied grin. "You guys seem pretty laid back – my last boss was really against drinking beer at work. This is much more like it!"

There were a few chuckles from the men that sat around the table as Curly – the boss had been calling him that for so long everyone else had forgotten what his name originally was – dealt the clueless new guy in. It was always fun to see what happened to the new guys.

"So, I've gotta ask – what's with that dude's totally retarded fashion sense?" Stefan joked, failing to notice the eyes of everyone else in the room turning to the doorway behind him. "Is he wearing that outfit for a bet or something? When I shut my eyes I can still see that suit burnt onto my retinas!"

"Hmm, burning into your retinas, you say?" Stefan's face fell as he twisted to see his new boss standing behind him, a casually thoughtful expression doing nothing to disguise the menace in his tone. "That sounds like an excellent basis for a little experiment involving some new high-strength acids I've been working on. Well suggested!"

Stefan cringed as the Joker gave him a hearty clap on the shoulder, then turned on the spot and disappeared back to his workshop in a purple and electric-green blur.

Once Stefan started breathing again he got several congratulatory handshakes on his dumb luck.

Later that day another new guy arrived, apparently on a tip from an old cellmate. Leonard looked around the warehouse at the oversized circus-props and other accoutrements of a Joker-hideout.

"You guys get through muscle pretty fast, right? With this guy if it's not the cops shootin' at you it'll be one of them caped do-gooders braining you with a nunchuck."

Curly gave the new guy a sardonic grin. "If you don't wanna play with the big boys you can go back to doffing your hat to D-list celebrities on the door of the Iceberg Lounge. Your choice, kid."

Leonard scoffed. "Cobblepot is a tight-flippered bastard – this pays three times as much, and I need the cash. I got an ex with two kids and a lawyer on speed-dial. But I can handle myself. You've clearly lasted long enough to grow a few grey hairs, so I'm just gonna do exactly what you do – when in Rome, y'know?"

Curly laughed. "Good luck with that."

The next morning Stefan almost hurled up over his own shoes helping Curly load what was left of Leonard into the back of the old station wagon they reserved for dumping jobs.

The older man wondered if the boss liked to borrow Two-Face's coin and flip it to decide what to do with the new guys, or if his craziness just hid a brilliance at detecting the dumb luck that was so often necessary to pull off a heist involving the Bat.

Curly never had been a betting man, but he wondered if it was too late to start now.

**Fin**

**End note:** Advice for wannabe Joker henchmen - first buy a lottery ticket and see if you win anything. If not, just don't risk it.


	22. Memories and Lies

**Prompt:** In Memoriam, first posted 26 May 2011

**Title:** Memories and Lies  
><strong>Universe:<strong> General  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Harleen Quinzel, pre-Joker  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 1,123  
><strong>Summary:<strong> A look back at some profoundly disfunctional family relationships even before Harleen started work at Arkham Asylum.

**Memories and Lies**

When Harleen Quinzell was eight years old her pet gerbil died. Twice.

Harleen hadn't thought much of it at the time – the fact that she came back from summer camp and Mr Nibbles had got a little thinner, and that his one white paw had become two white paws, and even that he seemed to have re-grown the tip of his tail that he'd once caught in his exercise wheel. She put his new-found friskiness down to being pleased to see her again after the long summer away. A few weeks later there was an unfortunate incident with the neighbour's cat who snuck in her open bedroom window, and Mr Nibbles' cage was retired to the attic while Harleen sobbingly buried him in the backyard.

It wasn't until several years later at a family New Years party when her dad tipsily joked about 'that time we had to replace that dead gerbil while you were at camp' that she learnt the truth. Harleen didn't see the funny side, but was suddenly grateful that her parents had never given in to her repeated begging for a puppy.

Harleen blinked in confusion as she looked around the room. Why she had suddenly started thinking about a dead childhood pet? Or more accurately two dead pets, she supposed. There was probably some sort of psychological explanation for it all that had been covered in one of the lectures she skipped out on in favour of gymnastics training, or recovering from a party the night before, or really anything in the world that was more fun than an early morning lecture. Maybe the uncertainty of starting a new job makes your brain reach back for memories of other childhood firsts like starting a new school or realising your parents are borderline sociopaths.

The strangeness of the ghosts of dead gerbils resurfacing in her mind aside, the now-Dr Quinzel could still recall with perfect clarity the confusion and betrayal that she felt when she first found out that her parents had lied to her. Only recently installed in her own tiny office at Arkham Asylum, the corny psychiatrist cold open line of 'tell me about your parents' seemed very apt.

It wasn't the first or the last time that they lied to her, after all. Not the commonplace lies of childhood about tooth fairies or how a magic nightlight would keep the monsters that live under beds and in closets at bay; instead theirs were lies of convenience.

Her father could never attend her gymnastics competitions because of 'work commitments' – but more than once she got home immediately afterwards to find that he'd cut work short to go on a weekend fishing trip.

Then there was her mother's allergy to dogs that meant she wasn't allowed that puppy, but the allergy mysteriously cleared up when she left for college and her mom decided to buy herself two little yappy Chihuahuas.

They lied about forgotten birthday presents, attending parent-teacher nights and how maybe next week they'd let her have a sleepover.

They also lied about the arguments she regularly heard them having in barely-suppressed tones after they thought she was asleep, and the time that her dad spent three weeks staying at a motel with his secretary. Over fifteen years later her mom still swore blind that he had been on a business trip in Phoenix, and her dad would just silently stare as though daring her to question the ridiculous story.

Since Harleen had a distinct memory of the several dozen drunken phone calls it took for her dad to talk his way into being let back into the house, she didn't know why they even bothered. Lying just seemed to have become their default method of communication with her, and maybe they were now too stuck in their perception of her as the naïve little eight year old she'd once been to consider changing to an honest adult-to-adult relationship.

She liked to think that she'd at least got some benefit from this otherwise dysfunctional upbringing – a healthy appreciation of the flexibility of the truth.

Her parents had demonstrated to her at an early age how lies could get you what you want and manipulate the people around you. A few little white lies about missing school assignments soon evolved into systematically failing to complete essays and tests due to a whole range of sick relatives, textbook-destroying accidents and highly improbable acts of God that meant she couldn't submit her work just right now. Since her parents were never going to bother attending a parent-teacher night, her artistic report-card forging wasn't going to get her found out.

The one area of her life she didn't lie and cheat her way through was gymnastics. The hours of practice that she put in were quite genuine, simply because she enjoyed the muscle-burning repetition of training for meets and the pure satisfaction of a perfect bars routine. She often wished the rest of her life was more like the time she spent practicing or competing, even if her parents still paid little attention to her successes.

But by college Harleen knew that she just didn't have the figure or the years left to make it to the very top, and she wasn't going to accept a second best career like gymnastics tutoring. If she was going to give her all for something she wanted success and most of all recognition. So with an eye to a future in writing the sorts of books that get you a tie-in TV show and your name in extra large letters, she turned to psychology. With a little extra assistance from certain members of the faculty she was certified to treat the worst of the certifiable.

So what if her dissertation was _technically_ a fail, so she _technically_ hadn't completed her course, so she _technically_ wasn't qualified to be sitting in this dingy office with a shiny, new white coat? The medical director had seen her CV and glowing references so expected to see a brilliant, highly proficient young doctor, on the way up. That's what she would give them – book learning wasn't the be all and end all anyway. In their first jobs everyone has to give a little 'fake it till you make it' shine to themselves, and no one would be questioning her unless she gave them a reason to.

With a self-satisfied nod Harleen replaced the single rose stem she'd been toying with back into it's delicate vase and reached for the surprisingly thick case file summary she'd been issued by the medical archivist that morning. Her first session with the patient that would make her a household name was in just a few hours; it was important to be prepared.

**Fin**

**End note:**I freely admit this is pretty rambling/all over the place! I started with an unfortunate childhood pet incident and it sort of evolved from there without a great sense of direction being imposed on it, so it's a bit of a jumble. With more time there would be more editing and re-writing but I left things late again...

This is an entirely OC-Mr and Mrs Quinzel setup since it doesn't tie in with the family shown in Gotham City Sirens and Harley's family haven't really been explored anywhere else. I just thought that an enduring lack of attention/affection and early childhood lessons in lying and manipulation seemed about right as a setup for meeting the Joker.


	23. Weights and Measures

**Prompt:** Estimate, first posted 30 May 2011

**Title:** Weights and Measures  
><strong>Universe:<strong> DCAU-kinda  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Humour  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Harley Quinn and a Dick-era Robin  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 500  
><strong>Summary:<strong> It was a beautiful evening to spend on one of the picturesque rooftops of Gotham, scuffling around in the moonlight with a mortal enemy...

**Weights and Measures**

Face ground into the gravel-strewn rooftop, a knee planted firmly on her back and arms twisted into a painful spaghetti-like knot; Harley Quinn concluded that she'd had better ends to a gig.

"Are you tryin' to dislocate my shoulder, Bird Brain, or is it just a happy side effect of your usual wannabe-police brutality?"

"_You're_ the one who's still squirming while I try to cuff you," came the reply from the teenage costumed-killjoy. "I'm only trying to stop you from hurting yourself or anyone else – particularly me – until you can get strapped back into one of those comfy Arkham straitjackets."

Once the cuffs were securely fastened Robin stood up and reluctantly helped Harley to her feet, keeping a cautious grip on her arm. To Harley's satisfaction there was no sign of the Joker joining her in Bat-custody.

Following her train of thought, Robin shook his head. "Batman followed him onto that grinning blimp of yours – Joker won't be getting far. But I can't babysit you all night in case he needs some help, so how much do you weigh?"

Harley tried to elbow the pipsqueak in the stomach and huffed in outrage. "What sorta question is that to ask a lady?"

Robin dodged the wide swing easily. "Well for starters trying to kill us with that bazooka five minutes ago was not exactly ladylike behaviour. Secondly, since that cackling lunatic you call a boyfriend chose the tallest building in Gotham to have his little midnight toxic chemical party, we're going to have to rappel down to one of the lower gantries so I can hand you over to the cops. This roof might be fine for blimps but the police helicopters can't land on it."

With his spare hand he started uncoiling a rappelling line from his belt. "When jumping off the side of a building relying on a single rope it helps to know all the variables."

Harley was too busy scowling at the idea of being humiliatingly lowered down the side of a building tied to one of the Bat-gang to fully follow his argument, but after a moment she caught up with the gist.

"Hang on, are you callin' me fat? Are you sayin' that if you don't allow three hundred pounds for hefty Harley in your calculations that your flimsy little rope might break?"

"I wasn't saying…" Robin started to protest, then gave up with a shrug. "Fine – I'll just estimate to the closest ten pounds and then add another ten for luck."

"I'm not part of some county fair guess-the-weight-of-the-henchwench game!" Harley shrieked, trying to elbow him again. "And if you're not careful you're gonna get ten lucky pounds of my foot inserted in your…"

Robin deftly tripped her over his left leg and sent her sprawling back on the surface of the rooftop where he resumed a half-kneeling pin to stop her from getting up again, despite vociferous protests.

Eventually she'd get tired. Or maybe the cops would arrive and unlock the maintenance door…

**Fin**

**End note:** This fic has nothing in particular to say but it made me giggle, so there you go!


End file.
